Poets

Rose Styron

Rose Styron is a poet, journalist, translator, and international human rights activist. She has traveled widely for Amnesty International and other human rights organizations, chairing AIUSA’s National Advisory Council, PEN’s Freedom to Write Committee, and the RFK Human Rights Award. In 2009 and 2010 Ms. Styron was a resident fellow at Harvard’s Institute of Politics and its Carr Center for Human Rights. Recently she has written introductions to Letters to My Father (Lousiana State University Press) and The Selected Letters of William Styron (Random House), which she also edited. With Meryl Streep, she cochairs Poetry & the Creative Mind on stage at Lincoln Center on behalf of the Academy of American Poets each April. She has published four volumes of poetry, the most recent of which is Fierce Day (Friesen Press).

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Lesson Plans

By This Poet

Suddenly,
there's nothing to do
and too much—
the lawn, paths, woods
were never so green
white blossoms of every
size and shape—hydrangea,
Chinese dogwood, mock orange
spill their glistening—
Inside, your photographs
and books stand guard
in orderly array. Your
half of the bed is smooth,
the pillows plump, the phone
just out of reach beyond it.
No one calls early—they
remember your late hours.
The shades are down, so
sunlight's held at bay
though not the fabulous winged
song of summer birds
waking me as ever, always in our
favorite room, our season.
Yesterday's mail on the desk
newspaper, unread. Plans for the day
hover bright out all our doors—
Don't think of evening.